If you spot a gray SUV packed with curly-haired teens in Irish dancing costumes, some finishing homework assignments while sipping Shamrock Shakes, wave hello to this weekend's entertainment.
Over the next 72 hours, you might see them again — dancing for TV cameras or for nursing home residents, at school assemblies and major Chicago sporting events, not to mention at dozens of crowded pubs where patrons are sipping green beer.
While other kids their age may put on a green T-shirt this weekend, or splurge on sparkly shamrock headbands and necklaces, a group of 12 elite dancers from the Trinity Academy of Irish Dance has been celebrating St. Patrick's Day for weeks now. And this is crunch time.
The teens, who have been Irish dancing for most of their lives, juggle as many as five shows each day in between school and homework. They stuff fiberglass-toed dancing shoes and wigs in their school lockers, and bring backpacks filled with homework backstage at dance halls.
"I love St. Patrick's Day, but I always look forward to the day after St. Patrick's Day, when I can take a really long nap," said Moira Kennedy, 18, a high school senior from Elmhurst.
Earlier this week, Kennedy reported to downtown Chicago at sunrise so she and other dancers could perform on a morning news program, rushed home in time for the first high school bell, then returned downtown after school to dance on the Chicago Symphony Center stage.
Directors at Trinity, the largest Irish dance academy in the Chicago area, say the demand for performances from their organization — and from dozens of other Irish dance schools serving Chicago and its suburbs — demonstrates a shift in how, over the past 20 years, the public has learned to appreciate Irish culture, beyond the usual cliches.
Local Irish cultural experts say the broader interest has been inspired largely by technological advances, such as ancestry websites, and strong marketing pushes by Ireland as well as by Irish cultural centers in the U.S. It's given the public a new appreciation for Irish art, literature and even cooking.
Membership at the Irish American Heritage Center in Chicago has grown nearly 50 percent since 2011, said John Gorski, its president.
"It's exciting," Gorski said. "When we open our doors tomorrow, we open not to just a line for the pub, but a line to get into the auditorium to watch dance, to the library to get in for genealogy and a line for the art gallery and to eat Irish food."
It wasn't so long ago that the public's perception of Irish culture was far less enlightened, said Natalie Howard, co-director of the Trinity academy.
Howard chuckles remembering how two decades ago, her husband, Mark, founder of the Irish dance school, was invited to bring dancers to dress as leprechauns and push shopping carts through a department store in honor of St. Patrick's Day.
"Mark was like, 'Oh my gosh, absolutely no way. I'm not sinking to that level,'" Natalie Howard said. "What we try to do is more the performing arts end of the whole Irish dancing scene."
By the mid-1990s, the popularity of "Riverdance," an internationally touring Irish step dancing show that at one point featured Chicagoan Michael Flatley, inspired a surge in Irish dance enrollment in the Chicago area and across the U.S., Howard said.
Trinity started with about 80 dancers. Today it has 1,100 students at locations across the Chicago area and southern Wisconsin, while several other organizations and private instructors also teach young people the cultural dance known for its rapid leg movements. In Irish dancing, exuberant tap-dance steps are performed while the body and arms are kept largely stationary.
Grace Drinane, a 14-year-old from Glen Ellyn who started Irish dancing when she was 5, can't remember when her entire month of March wasn't booked. This year, the eighth-grader at Glen Crest Middle School counted 22 shows to perform in a three-week time span.
The hectic schedule required her to get special permission to leave school early on a few occasions. She also made blueprints for her school science project in the car while shuttling between gigs, she said.
"Sometimes it's crazy," Drinane said. "I'll be going to school in full dance clothes and wigs."
Her mother, Julie Drinane, says she can't help but be impressed by the way her daughter and other dancers maintain the hectic season.
"They just go and they balance it all," she said, adding that her daughter has learned important life lessons from the St. Patrick's Day obligations, from being comfortable in front of audiences to interacting with adults.
"I like the opportunities that they have to meet different people," she said. "From a parent's standpoint, I think the most important thing about it is that they're able to share a talent that they've developed with other people."
Ian Schwartz, a 15-year-old freshman at Vernon Hills High School, said he wouldn't trade what he calls "two full weeks of chaos" — guzzling Gatorade and munching fruit snacks while having fun with friends in carpools en route to performances — for anything. He doesn't even mind the 4 a.m. wake-up calls.
"When you know you're going to be on TV, it gets you up," he said.
From mid-February to St. Patrick's Day this year, dancers from Trinity will have appeared in 150 shows in Illinois. The organization charges performance fees for some of the appearances, but the proceeds pay for staff and travel costs and do not turn a direct profit for the academy, Howard said.
The most gratifying payoff, she added, is knowing that Irish dance is appreciated and in demand.
"When you say you're an Irish dancer nowadays, people get it," she said. "They do know now that it's less about the leprechaun and pot of gold."
vohealy@tribune.com
Copyright © 2014 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
Over the next 72 hours, you might see them again — dancing for TV cameras or for nursing home residents, at school assemblies and major Chicago sporting events, not to mention at dozens of crowded pubs where patrons are sipping green beer.
While other kids their age may put on a green T-shirt this weekend, or splurge on sparkly shamrock headbands and necklaces, a group of 12 elite dancers from the Trinity Academy of Irish Dance has been celebrating St. Patrick's Day for weeks now. And this is crunch time.
The teens, who have been Irish dancing for most of their lives, juggle as many as five shows each day in between school and homework. They stuff fiberglass-toed dancing shoes and wigs in their school lockers, and bring backpacks filled with homework backstage at dance halls.
"I love St. Patrick's Day, but I always look forward to the day after St. Patrick's Day, when I can take a really long nap," said Moira Kennedy, 18, a high school senior from Elmhurst.
Earlier this week, Kennedy reported to downtown Chicago at sunrise so she and other dancers could perform on a morning news program, rushed home in time for the first high school bell, then returned downtown after school to dance on the Chicago Symphony Center stage.
Directors at Trinity, the largest Irish dance academy in the Chicago area, say the demand for performances from their organization — and from dozens of other Irish dance schools serving Chicago and its suburbs — demonstrates a shift in how, over the past 20 years, the public has learned to appreciate Irish culture, beyond the usual cliches.
Local Irish cultural experts say the broader interest has been inspired largely by technological advances, such as ancestry websites, and strong marketing pushes by Ireland as well as by Irish cultural centers in the U.S. It's given the public a new appreciation for Irish art, literature and even cooking.
Membership at the Irish American Heritage Center in Chicago has grown nearly 50 percent since 2011, said John Gorski, its president.
"It's exciting," Gorski said. "When we open our doors tomorrow, we open not to just a line for the pub, but a line to get into the auditorium to watch dance, to the library to get in for genealogy and a line for the art gallery and to eat Irish food."
It wasn't so long ago that the public's perception of Irish culture was far less enlightened, said Natalie Howard, co-director of the Trinity academy.
Howard chuckles remembering how two decades ago, her husband, Mark, founder of the Irish dance school, was invited to bring dancers to dress as leprechauns and push shopping carts through a department store in honor of St. Patrick's Day.
"Mark was like, 'Oh my gosh, absolutely no way. I'm not sinking to that level,'" Natalie Howard said. "What we try to do is more the performing arts end of the whole Irish dancing scene."
By the mid-1990s, the popularity of "Riverdance," an internationally touring Irish step dancing show that at one point featured Chicagoan Michael Flatley, inspired a surge in Irish dance enrollment in the Chicago area and across the U.S., Howard said.
Trinity started with about 80 dancers. Today it has 1,100 students at locations across the Chicago area and southern Wisconsin, while several other organizations and private instructors also teach young people the cultural dance known for its rapid leg movements. In Irish dancing, exuberant tap-dance steps are performed while the body and arms are kept largely stationary.
Grace Drinane, a 14-year-old from Glen Ellyn who started Irish dancing when she was 5, can't remember when her entire month of March wasn't booked. This year, the eighth-grader at Glen Crest Middle School counted 22 shows to perform in a three-week time span.
The hectic schedule required her to get special permission to leave school early on a few occasions. She also made blueprints for her school science project in the car while shuttling between gigs, she said.
"Sometimes it's crazy," Drinane said. "I'll be going to school in full dance clothes and wigs."
Her mother, Julie Drinane, says she can't help but be impressed by the way her daughter and other dancers maintain the hectic season.
"They just go and they balance it all," she said, adding that her daughter has learned important life lessons from the St. Patrick's Day obligations, from being comfortable in front of audiences to interacting with adults.
"I like the opportunities that they have to meet different people," she said. "From a parent's standpoint, I think the most important thing about it is that they're able to share a talent that they've developed with other people."
Ian Schwartz, a 15-year-old freshman at Vernon Hills High School, said he wouldn't trade what he calls "two full weeks of chaos" — guzzling Gatorade and munching fruit snacks while having fun with friends in carpools en route to performances — for anything. He doesn't even mind the 4 a.m. wake-up calls.
"When you know you're going to be on TV, it gets you up," he said.
From mid-February to St. Patrick's Day this year, dancers from Trinity will have appeared in 150 shows in Illinois. The organization charges performance fees for some of the appearances, but the proceeds pay for staff and travel costs and do not turn a direct profit for the academy, Howard said.
The most gratifying payoff, she added, is knowing that Irish dance is appreciated and in demand.
"When you say you're an Irish dancer nowadays, people get it," she said. "They do know now that it's less about the leprechaun and pot of gold."
vohealy@tribune.com
Copyright © 2014 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
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